CBR 10 Bingo: Birthday – Kurt Vonnegut born November 11, 1922
This is Kim Pendergest, Cannonball Read 10’s reporter on the Afterlife. During yesterday’s controlled near-death experience, I interviewed Kurt Vonnegut and asked him to explain why he decided to write God Bless Dr. Kevorikian.
“So what’s the deal?” I asked. “Was this just a cash-grab?”
“Not at all,” he said, “I started writing these as 90-second spots for WNYC, the public radio station for New York City.”
“Thanks for the exposition, but I know that already. And that’s all well and good, but why bind these into a book and make people pay for it?”
“Maybe you just don’t get it,” he scoffed.
“I get it fine. But if you had the chance to interview Adolph Hitler, could you have at least asked something interesting?”
“You don’t think it’s poignant that Hitler thinks he paid for his sins by dying along with 35 million other people during World War II?”
“Not particularly, no. And by the way, in your interview with John Brown, you suggested that Thomas Jefferson might not have been a 100% awesome individual. Did you think that was a groundbreaking revelation, or something?”
“I didn’t say it, John Brown did.”
“Right,” I sighed. “Just like the retired construction worker who died protecting his schnauzer from a pit bull said he didn’t mind dying for a dog because ‘it sure as heck beat dying for nothing like in the Viet Nam War.’ Admit it, you phoned it in on this one.”
“It’s rated four-and-a-half stars on Amazon.”
“I’m not going to be bullied into liking something just because Kurt Vonnegut wrote it.”
“Look, nobody forced you to read it.”
“That’s true,” I mused. “I wanted to read Slaughterhouse Five but it was checked out of my public library, and the concept intrigued me. I mean, I read it in less than a day, I guess that’s something.”
“I have to make a living like everyone else,” Vonnegut said. He was done talking to me.
Fair enough.
Until next time, this is Kim Pendergest, signing off in the lethal injection facility in Burbank, California.
I have tried at least three Vonnegut books, and I have accepted that he and I just aren’t on the same wave length. I think the thing of his I enjoyed most was a short story a high school teacher shared with us and I am not usually much of a short story reader.
So it goes.
Yeah. . . I still want to give Slaughterhouse Five a shot, but my expectations have been lowered significantly.